


Catatonia

by HolmesianDeduction



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Catatonic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-04
Updated: 2012-07-04
Packaged: 2017-11-09 03:23:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/450701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HolmesianDeduction/pseuds/HolmesianDeduction
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Watson arrives home late one night to a strange sight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Catatonia

             As John Watson ascended the stairs to 221b after an unusually late night, he came to the startling realisation that the lights were completely off throughout the flat, and assuming the worst, began skipping steps on his way up.  Pushing the door to the flat open, he was greeted by an inky darkness, pierced only by the glowing lights of a digital clock.

              _Well at least the power's not out.  Hell.  Four in the morning?  It's later than I thought._

             Reaching over, he turned on a lamp and froze.

             Sherlock Holmes sat on the sofa in, as far as John could tell, his bathrobe and very little else.  Leaning forward, his sharp elbows resting on equally sharp knees, he sat like a wax sculpture, long fingers curled white-knuckled around a handgun that John recognised with some horror as his own.  His hair hung limply over his profile as though slightly damp, and his full lips were pressed tightly together in a very nearly straight line.

             "Sherlock?"

             There was no response, and taking a few more steps into the room, John stepped around the front of the coffee table.  "Sherlock?"  He leaned forward, but even as he came nose to nose with the detective, the other man remained frozen in place.  Summoning up his courage, he brushed aside some of Sherlock's hair to look at the spectacle that were the other man's silvery grey eyes, the pupils reduced to pinpricks in the sudden light.

             Swallowing hard, John carefully pried his gun from his friend's fingers, laying it safely out of reach before reaching forward to tie Sherlock's robe closed and ease him back into a lying-down position on the sofa.  Dimming the lamp, he seated himself in a nearby armchair, and examining the gun, realised that it was never loaded.

             By the time John awoke the next morning, Sherlock was back to normal - or at least as close to normal as Sherlock Holmes was capable of being.  Not a word was said on the subject, and when John attempted briefly to press the issue, he only found himself on the receiving end of a particularly nasty glare that sent him sighing back into his thoughts, comforted only by the thought that it would likely never happen again.


End file.
